! All'arme / ? And what... if not, published by Macha Press in 2024, is a tȇte-bȇche (head-to-toe or double) publication comprised of two experimental poetic works and a sequence of typographical sculptures by Belfast poet and artist Eilish Martin.
A ‘career apex’ poet whose natural home is at once on the margins and at the heart of the hybrid, Eilish Martin’s practice in ! All'arme / ? And what… if not is at once experimental, interdisciplinary and intercultural.
In content and visionary concept, the poetries published in this tête-bêche (head-to-toe) double book brings together lyrical fragmentation and narrative drive, language play, intertextual dialogue and textual innovation with unsettling anxieties and deep care for public and private worlds.
The collection catalogues some small part of what she herself has referred to as the ‘compulsive journey’ of her poetry-making and verbal-visual improvisations across the past ten years.
Praise for Eilish Martin's ! All'arme / ? And what... if not :
Unconcerned with performing an anxious turn towards meaning, and in its preoccupations with scoring the moment, its journey of making, and the very act of reading - which is to say the deciphering of visual marks on a script - Eilish Martin's ! All'arme / ? And what... if not invites us to consider how poetry in print operates through some of its first principles: the alphabet and punctuation. Its materiality; its privileging of the fragment; the embedded silences; its interdisciplinary urges spotlighting the porousness of borders; and its nod to translation as a transformative and communicative practice - all these are both a call to arms and refreshingly irreverent.
- Christodoulos Makris
In this new Macha Press publication, the letter on the page becomes more than just a conventional symbol – it becomes material / a gorgeous 'something’... while the page itself becomes ‘space as invention’, to quote that great formal innovator Georges Perec. This is an exciting new publishing endeavour whose mission is to take seriously the playful, collaborative, and inventive forms and styles being explored in poetry today.
- Tara Bergin
As only the most compelling poetries can, Eilish Martin’s ! All Arme , / ? And what... if not brings to mind my favourite poets and artists. Buzzing with meaningful experimentation, I think of works by C.D Wright, Kathryn Scanlan, Ailbhe Darcy, Helen Cammock, Caroline Bergvall, and Fiona Reilly. In her work, Martin pushes against simplistic interpretations of language, offering new ways to make meaning outside of the easily graspable. Her command of the page and of the subject and object of language is refreshing in its confidence. She asserts reading as an active experience that includes breath, sight and sound. To quote Martin herself: 'suffer it , squat here , draw back the lips'.
- Julie Morrissy
Spending time with Eilish Martin’s ! All’arme / ? And what… if not is a welcome shake-up of language as power, taking the reader to the root – not root causes, but rooted and rooting words as causational. What is a word? What does it do? This question is always vital, always resonant. Now we need more, not less creativity, more, not less disruption of any supposed sense-making of senselessness. We need such sensations, voices (more than one per poet and poem), and cared for pages.
- Kimberly Campanello
Note: This purchase is of the individual book described above. If you have already become a Subscriber or Supporter of Macha Press, you have purchased this title and should not complete this order unless you would like an additional individual copy of the book.
! All'arme / ? And what... if not, published by Macha Press in 2024, is a tȇte-bȇche (head-to-toe or double) publication comprised of two experimental poetic works and a sequence of typographical sculptures by Belfast poet and artist Eilish Martin.
A ‘career apex’ poet whose natural home is at once on the margins and at the heart of the hybrid, Eilish Martin’s practice in ! All'arme / ? And what… if not is at once experimental, interdisciplinary and intercultural.
In content and visionary concept, the poetries published in this tête-bêche (head-to-toe) double book brings together lyrical fragmentation and narrative drive, language play, intertextual dialogue and textual innovation with unsettling anxieties and deep care for public and private worlds.
The collection catalogues some small part of what she herself has referred to as the ‘compulsive journey’ of her poetry-making and verbal-visual improvisations across the past ten years.
Praise for Eilish Martin's ! All'arme / ? And what... if not :
Unconcerned with performing an anxious turn towards meaning, and in its preoccupations with scoring the moment, its journey of making, and the very act of reading - which is to say the deciphering of visual marks on a script - Eilish Martin's ! All'arme / ? And what... if not invites us to consider how poetry in print operates through some of its first principles: the alphabet and punctuation. Its materiality; its privileging of the fragment; the embedded silences; its interdisciplinary urges spotlighting the porousness of borders; and its nod to translation as a transformative and communicative practice - all these are both a call to arms and refreshingly irreverent.
- Christodoulos Makris
In this new Macha Press publication, the letter on the page becomes more than just a conventional symbol – it becomes material / a gorgeous 'something’... while the page itself becomes ‘space as invention’, to quote that great formal innovator Georges Perec. This is an exciting new publishing endeavour whose mission is to take seriously the playful, collaborative, and inventive forms and styles being explored in poetry today.
- Tara Bergin
As only the most compelling poetries can, Eilish Martin’s ! All Arme , / ? And what... if not brings to mind my favourite poets and artists. Buzzing with meaningful experimentation, I think of works by C.D Wright, Kathryn Scanlan, Ailbhe Darcy, Helen Cammock, Caroline Bergvall, and Fiona Reilly. In her work, Martin pushes against simplistic interpretations of language, offering new ways to make meaning outside of the easily graspable. Her command of the page and of the subject and object of language is refreshing in its confidence. She asserts reading as an active experience that includes breath, sight and sound. To quote Martin herself: 'suffer it , squat here , draw back the lips'.
- Julie Morrissy
Spending time with Eilish Martin’s ! All’arme / ? And what… if not is a welcome shake-up of language as power, taking the reader to the root – not root causes, but rooted and rooting words as causational. What is a word? What does it do? This question is always vital, always resonant. Now we need more, not less creativity, more, not less disruption of any supposed sense-making of senselessness. We need such sensations, voices (more than one per poet and poem), and cared for pages.
- Kimberly Campanello
Note: This purchase is of the individual book described above. If you have already become a Subscriber or Supporter of Macha Press, you have purchased this title and should not complete this order unless you would like an additional individual copy of the book.
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